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Thursday, 25 September 2014

A supplement in The Times newspaper has quoted from my analysis of the potential of
wearables to change the way the insurance industry works. I've published the
analysis below in full and the Times article ishere.

Wearables + the IoT = Lots of excitementWearable technology becomes exponentially more interesting for the
insurance industry when the data that devices collect about our behaviour are
combined with data emanating from the broader ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT). In
fact insurancehas been called the‘nativebusiness model’ for the IoT, a term that describes the anticipated26 billion internet connected objects by 2020,
in the same way that advertising was dubbed the native business model of the
internet.

The Internet of Things. That's the dry theory but how about messy reality?Phil Windley ‘Web ofThings’ CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 licence

With more data to cross reference, for example data collected
about our exercise regime through a wearable health bracelet with what smart
cutlery says we are shovelling into our mouths, the theory is that predictions
can be made more accurate and premiums more reflective of our lifestyles.

Steady on! Three issues to address

Before the insurance industry gets too excited about the potential
of wearable technology and the IoT however, there are three crucial issues to
consider. Firstly, whether wearables become ubiquitous is out of the industry's
hands and depends on the extent that they enhance our lives as social beings.
Secondly, the industry needs to find ways to access available sensor data and
finally if it does, it may find that too much exposure to our personal data
exhausts may be as useless as too little. In more detail:

One - Factors affecting the popularity of (particular) wearable devices

The main challenge for the manufacturers of wearable technology is how to make their products desirable. Their success will dictate the uptake of wearables and therefore their usefulness to the insurance industry. The most forward thinking technology companies have realised both thatwhat we wear has symbolic value, plays into cultural processesand thatdata alone is of limited use to us as social beings. Why else would there be a solid gold version of the new Apple Watch, which has self tracking functionality, other than to signal something about ourselves? Being interested in data per se is a niche pursuit an even then has social aspects, as demonstrated by the practices of 'quantified self' movement adherents. For others the connected nature of the new generation of wearables can help them play into age old inter-social dynamics such as bonding and building our reputations.

The success of particular wearables is not guaranteed (look at what happened to Nike's ostensibly successful Fuelband) and the insurance industry will have to understand which have the best prospects based on these criteria, before getting into bed with them, or rather slipping them onto their wrists.

Two - Accessing the dataAccessing the data is the next issue for the industry. Privacy
concerns, made all the more real by Snowden’s NSA revelations, will potentially
temper peoples’ and societies’ willingness to share the data they generate
voluntarily or inadvertently with companies and by extension the government.
Further, insurance companies are not the natural data gatekeepers. They will
either have to work with those who are, for example Microsoft’s deal
with American Family Insurance earlier this year to find ways to put
sensors into our domestic environments, or let Google, which already knows far
more about our risk profiles through its plethora of platforms, dictate the
terms.

Three - More data brings more headaches

Finally, big data analytics is in its infancy and struggles with
the same problems that statisticians always have done. Leaving aside issues of
the compatibility of different sources of data, one of the most relevant issues
for the insurance industry that may suddenly have access to many more variables
from our personal data exhausts, is how to work out what patterns are
significant. This problem is compounded by very real disagreements about the
virtues or otherwise of certain practices: It's all well and good being able to
track that an individual has just had a glass of red wine but the medical
establishment itself can't agree on whether that's a good or a bad thing.

Two rather more interesting questionsAs a postscript we could ask two perhaps more interesting
questions. How does society stand to be changed by the interest of the
insurance industry in collecting more behavioural data and why do we behave in
the way such data show we do?

By rewarding or insisting on transparency the insurance industry
reinforces the assumption, espoused by governments and tech giants such as
Google that we havesomething to
hideif we don’t want our lives
to be subject to close examination. But there are a number of very good reasons
why the prospect of us becoming ‘entrepreneurs of the self’, namely managingpersonal data portfoliosthat we selectively release in
exchange for perks, is not adequate compensation for the all-encompassing
surveillance that is entailed. One of those reasons has to do with the use to
which that data is put, for example by the government (which has access to all
of it) to make predictions about our future behaviour thatcreate suspicion based on obscure algorithms.
Incidentally, insurance companies grappling with our data exhausts will also
increasingly use obscure algorithms over which we have no recourse and that
stand to entrench discrimination if for example the wealthy can opt out over the kinds of surveillance and behavioural controls that the poor are subject to in order to qualify.

Two - Big data needs small data

Big data needs to be complemented by ‘small data’ (or 'thick data') collection
if it is to mean anything. A series of ‘big data’ sensors in smoke alarms might
be able to tell an insurance company that they are routinely left with flat
batteries but until you investigate the reasons why by looking at the personal
and social contexts that influence individuals’ decisions not to replace a
battery, you aren’t going to have much luck in changing behaviours. That’s
where a digital anthropologist comes in…

Thursday, 11 September 2014

I was asked recently
by a journalist from the Press Association to comment on the anonymous
sitePencourage.

It has been dubbed as the anti-social
network and the 'real-life Facebook' because users are encouraged to be
completely honest about their lives.

The journalist's specific question was: Is it a good thing that we can vent our true feelings and not have to
hide behind the 'fake' profiles we build on sites like Facebook?

Here are my thoughts
and at the end is a link to the published article which puts them in context:

Pencourage is reselling
us the popular fantasy that we have a single authentic self and it tells us that it can help us give vent to that self,
without feeling the kind of social pressures that regulate our behaviour on Facebook. For a social scientist the two problems are that we
don’t have such a self and that we are exchanging one set of pressures for
another.

Our lives are a
series of performances that take account of the social setting and the
audience. Sociologist Erving Goffman established this convincingly in the 60s. In that sense we have multiple selves and now, one of those selves may be
our Facebook presence. Our profile is not ‘fake’, but it might give rise to
some mental discomfort as we deal with how different audiences come together
and we decide what we should reveal in that environment.

Pencourage is another
avenue for another one of our many selves. Here, what we post is still
influenced by considerations such as the thought that it must be interesting
enough to gain the attention of the audience. This will encourage certain
things to be written, in certain ways.

It might be
instructive to look at the situation in Trinidad, where people have the same
concern about how to portray ones true self, but the conclusions about how to
do this are very different. Anthropologists have reported that just as in
Carnival, where the mask you create is said to reveal your true personality,
Facebook profiles are said to do the same. So you don’t need a Pencourage
account to be true to yourself: Ironically, more about your 'real' self is said to be revealed by the
Facebook profile you create.

The takeaway point for businesses is that they really need to understand the social worlds they are launching products and services into. Would Pencourage's message resonate as strongly in Trinidad? The takeaway point for social scientists working
in the commercial world is that popular perceptions as much as behavioural ‘reality’
could provide a sound basis for a business. Time will tell whether Pencourage
is one such business…

Wednesday, 1 January 2014

In 2013 the international Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) took a foray into PR, with the objective of
explaining the rationale for ethnography to new audiences. Here is a description of the two principal campaign strands. I conclude with three takeaways that strategy, research and design consultancies trying to get the message out might also find useful.

EPIC is a well-respected, thriving
event that delivers on its mission to bring together leading practitioners and
foster debate. That was reason enough for me to be involved a local organiser with a focus on arranging some of its networking events. But I could not resist bringing a PR lens to bear because of my background in it (which actually lead me to ethnography/anthropology). So I suggested EPIC should dip its toe in the water with a micro campaign to promote ethnography’s applications. This entailedworking through the media and also direct engagement to reach high-level 'client-side' decision-makers.

Would anyone listen? I anticipated an uphill battle in part because of the widespread beliefs that the only behavioural insights of value
flow from quantitative 'big data' (v.s. qualitative or mixed methods ethnography) and that the only skills worth having in innovative organisations derive from STEM (science,
technology, engineering, maths) training (v.s. the social sciences or humanities backgrounds of most ethnographers).

But I realised that we could also turn these beliefs to our advantage by challenging them, David and Goliath style. The
prospect of doing this gave me personal satisfaction: One thing that experience
as an ethnographer has taught me is that STEM thinking, narrowly construed, can’t on its own solve challenges in business and
society.

STRAND 1

Media relations: the approach and the
outcome

When you want to make a complex case
through the mainstream on and offline print media, which still has the greatest reach, two of the
most appropriate formats are bylined articles that you write yourself and
features put together by a journalist. They are not equivalent: Apart from
lending themselves to different kinds of discussion the latter tend to carry
more weight.

Journalists like pithy arguments. Ethnographers are not so keen.[Image: adapted original by Billy1847, used under a creative commons licence (CC By 2.0)]

We chose the latter course, but in
the knowledge that putting a complex topic in hands of another party to convey
is inherently risky. In the case of ethnography, journalists cannot seem to get
past the compelling if over-used image of the colonial era pith-helmeted anthropologist transplanted in time and
place to a modern day suburban home or office.

On the rare occasions that journalists try to get beyond this image, because they have been granted more time or space by their editors than is usually available (the FT scores some points in this regard but is by no means perfect), they can still fall at the final hurdle and reduce ethnography to observation…or journalism. Some ethnographic practitioners argue that such exposure should be encouraged because it at least brings attention to the field. Others resent the perception such pieces build of ethnography as an exotic and marginal practice.

But I digress. We invited a Financial
Times editor to attend EPIC. In the pitch (necessarily top-line because journalists
are busy people!) we offered him an opportunity to interrupt his blanket and
largely positive coverage of big data. The idea that organisations are also gathering 'thick data' to understand why people behave in the way big data may show them to be behaving, appealed to his critical sensibilities.

The journalist he delegated came and
spoke to EPIC organisers and participants in depth. The resulting full-page articledid not
deviate a great deal from the pattern described above, but at the very least it
was the first time in a long time that FT readers, leaders in a broad range of sectors, were invited to think about the place of ethnography in addressing their
particular challenges.

Being heavily involved with STEM-grounded
enterprises, ethnographic practitioners are uniquely placed to add their voices
to the debate and make the case for the value of non-STEM education and
thinking. The very fact that some of the most recognised names in Silicon
Valley are relying on the input of humanities trained researchers and social
scientists to, for example, make products that people actually want to use,
should give pause for thought to some of the more stridently pro-STEM and
anti-humanities/liberal arts/social sciences voices. Or in other words: We’re
on the same side, stupid!*

The result? Luke politely declined. His response is on an earlier blog post, along with my response to him.

That was the end of the limited PR experiment,
which pointed the way to the future for EPIC and some ways consultancies can join the PR
fray.

3 TAKEAWAYS

Future directions for EPIC and consultancies using ethnography

Looking ahead EPIC could continue to act as an advocate for the profession on an ongoing basis and gain wider attention for the event itself.1. One of the
key assets EPIC has at its disposal is the collection of case studies it brings
together: Anything that can relate research work to tangible outcomes should be used to help move media coverage on from pith helmets. Individual consultancies find hard to produce enough publicisable
case studies to drive their own outreach efforts because of client
restrictions and the long term nature of the work. They could instead collaborate with their peers via EPIC, to put the best of what they have on a powerful single platform

2. EPIC could also think about writing an ongoing series of bylined articles for relevant publications. The subjects can
be many and varied and take a cue from what is on the event agenda, but should
always aim to be topical. One of those issues could be the STEM debate, which
manifests in different ways. The bylined articles tactic is more achievable for a consultancy on its own, writing articles tailored to its particular expertise and
outlook**

3. Finally, EPIC could do more with
direct outreach. Many consultancies are successfully doing this on a smaller
scale by hosting salons, often on the theme of reports they have produced. In
EPIC’s case it could focus on the theme that lead to the Luke Johnson invite,
only inviting more protagonists and convening a special panel to debate it at next year's conference in
New York. The output from that panel could be disseminated more widely

*Some in engineering have come to the
same conclusion, for example the people over at Big
Beacon